Friday 1 April 2011 12.30 EDT
First published on Friday 1 April 2011 12.30 EDT

Conservative radio hosts were in fighting form this week, calling time on family planning, the unions and the Obama presidency.

Laura Ingraham

Laura Ingraham

Laura Ingraham is hoping that Planned Parenthood, the organisation that provides reproductive healthcare services to an estimated 3 million American women a year, will now be defunded because of the latest sting operation carried out by Lila Rose, who Ingraham thinks should be awarded a Pulitzer Prize for journalism, and her Live Action Group which called 30 Planned Parenthood centres asking if they performed mammograms, only to be told that they don't (listen to clip).

Lila Rose has done an enormous service to the cause of truth in covering what Planned Parenthood's mission truly is. It has been billed as a healthcare organisation, a woman's reproductive healthcare centre or organisation for women's health – but we all now know: follow the money. They get the money either from US taxpayers courtesy of the federal dollars that support its education efforts and administrative costs, and it gets its money from the hundreds of thousands of abortions performed at Planned Parenthood clinics across the United States.

So, Ingraham seems to have concluded that because Planned Parenthood has been "exposed" as being an organisation that does not provide onsite mammograms, they should not be classified as a woman's reproductive healthcare outfit and should not receive federal funding. The thing is, Planned Parenthood never claimed to provide onsite mammograms, so the whole Lila Rose sting operation would appear to be a much ado about nothing.

Aren't you sick of that euphemism "family planning"? Family planning! No: you're planning to selectively reduce your own offspring. You're planning on not having the child that you have in your womb! That's not planning, that's destroying! It even sounds sinister. I don't like it. I don't like hearing "family planning".

It's an unfortunate predicament for Ingraham to find herself in – that is, being opposed to both family planning and abortion – as less of one will inevitably lead to more of the other.

Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh

The normally unflappable Rush Limbaugh came close to losing his cool this week with a caller who took issue with his coverage (or lack of coverage) of Governor Walker's union-busting measures (listen to clip). The caller, Mary Jo, a state worker from Wisconsin, told Limbaugh that she was never really pro-union until Governor Walker started in on them. But now that she is being forced to accept a significant reduction in her takehome pay, as well as losing the right to negotiate against any future cuts, this has changed. Her sudden interest in collective bargaining rights infuriates Limbaugh, who explains to her why she shouldn't have any.

Because you are collectively bargaining against your citizens. You are collectively bargaining against your neighbours. You're not bargaining against some fat cat CEO flying around in a jet who owns the company. The issue here is not about what you want. The issue is about what is affordable, what the citizens are able to pay. And they aren't able to pay what you are demanding. Collective bargaining, you are not engaging in collective bargaining when you're a public employee union. You're shaking down your fellow citizens, is what's happening.

This notion of Mary Jo and other state workers shaking down their fellow citizens seems to be the core issue for Limbaugh, who, for some bizarre reason, seems to think that state workers in Wisconsin earn twice as much as private workers – or that, at least, they think they should.

What is it that gives you the right to claim that your neighbours pay you twice as much as what they make? Where do you get off as a public worker union demanding that your neighbours pay for your healthcare for the rest of your life and your pension for the rest of your life!?

In fact, neither Mary Jo nor any of her union colleagues have been out there demanding that they get paid twice as much as their neighbours. If Limbaugh has indeed followed the events in Wisconsin as closely as he claims, he should be aware that the unions agreed to the proposed increases in pension and health contributions (which amounted to an 8% reduction in their takehome pay) at the outset – and that it was only the issue of retaining their collective bargaining rights that sparked the ongoing protests. He also should know that public employees in Wisconsin earn slightly less than private employees, though they do, in general, pay lower healthcare premiums and pension contributions (at least, until now). Maybe Limbaugh's confusion could be put down to anxiety over the state's overall financial position.

The governor is trying to save the state, save your job and everybody else's job. You don't see it that way because you have the bias and the prejudice of union membership. But who elected you to get healthcare for free? Who decided you get healthcare and your pension free for the rest of your life? Where did that happen? It's unsustainable. It can't go on!

He ended the call with Mary Jo at this point, perhaps out of fear that she might mention that the state budget was just fine until the governor decided to lower the corporate tax rate.

Michael Savage

Michael Savage

Michael Savage continues his lone attempt to have the president impeached as a necessary means of saving the country from the hell we have had to endure since November 2008, even though he acknowledges that the impeachment effort would have zero chance of success because the president has not committed an impeachable offence (listen to clip).

Two more years. Two more years of hell and multiculturalism. Two more years of an assault upon the constitution. Two more years of an assault upon the American family. Two more years of an assault upon the Constitution. Do you think we can take it? I don't think so. No, not so. I say we cannot take this group for another two years and we need to motivate the republicans to move for impeachment immediately. Unless there is a movement towards impeachment, where although they will not succeed in impeaching him, they will succeed in exposing him.

But even if some mileage can be gained by exposing Obama's many flaws, such as having lived abroad as a child and having obtained a law degree, the hope of finding an acceptable replacement remains elusive. None of the current GOP candidates is even remotely suitable: Tim Pawlenty is finished because he has the audacity to believe in global warming; Mike Huckabee is nothing more than a "Fox News guitar player"; and Newt Gingrich is a "soiled character", who is "contemptuous as a tick" and who makes Savage's "fresh crawl".

But desperate times call for desperate measures and if no decent candidate is prepared to come forward, then Savage is prepared to step in to fill the void. He already has his manifesto ready, so all that needs to be done is for him to be given the opportunity to implement it. Some of the highlights of his 37-point plan include closing and defending the borders, defunding and repealing "Obamacare", demanding reparations from Mexico in the form of one barrel of oil per illegal alien per month in exchange for the free healthcare they are provided in America, encouraging childbearing among taxpaying citizens, making abortion illegal, silencing the "Hitler of Iran", imposing trade tariffs on China, using racial profiling to prevent terror attacks and running the country like a business and not an empire.

Can you name one presidential candidate who has laid out a more thoughtful, more doable plan than I? The answer is no!

Maybe so, though I think Savage may have more luck getting the president impeached than getting himself elected.

• Sadhbh Walshe is taking a week's well-earned vacation. The Right Word series will resume on 13 April